Human Spaceflight in Social Media: Promoting Space Exploration Through Twitter

Abstract While space-based technologies for Earth applications are flourishing, space exploration activities suffer from a lack of public awareness as well as decreasing budgets. However, space exploration benefits are numerous and include significant science, technological development, socioeconomic benefits, education, and leadership contributions. Recent robotic exploration missions have positively influenced public perception by utilizing video and social media communication. How can these new communication technologies be used to better serve human spaceflight? How can space agencies and astronauts inspire tax-paying citizens, and thus politicians, to commit to an ambitious, global human spaceflight program based on international collaboration? This article analyzes how the Twitter network related to human spaceflight is organized, measuring how influence and relationships are linked, to better capture the best practices and enhance the promotion of space exploration. We outline the Twitter network and organization related to human spaceflights and show how the use of media (i.e., photos and videos) in tweets can affect the notoriety and popularity of Twitter accounts. We investigate the cultural differences of astronaut followers. This article crystallizes the study performed on the Twitter human spaceflight network. This is the first study analyzing the use of social media to communicate about human spaceflight and its potential. Future work needs to be done to characterize the effectiveness of using such a platform to build adequate support for human spaceflight, in comparison to more conventional communication tools.